Severed Dawn
by Makore
Summary: Walter is brooding the night before his excursion into 1944 Warsaw when an uninvited guest makes an appearance. [AxYW]


Author's Notes: This is my first fanfiction, and as such, I had worries for remaining true to the characters. I sincerely hope not to disappoint, as I have a great love for this pair. The fic itself is rather grim; I originally meant for a more... illicit... encounter, but I decided to explore the possibilities of Alucard's more dangerous side instead on a whim. None-the-less, I hope you enjoy. Any suggestions and criticisms more than welcome.

Winter's frost had fogged the windowpanes of the bedroom, meager in size; outside, snow had been steadily falling for hours in an unending and silent flow. Though the moon hung in the sky above the ominous storm clouds, concealed from sight, the blanket of white upon the ground made the world beyond Walter's window seem less menacing.

Darkness and nightfall was a time he had come accustomed to disliking by nature. Within it, creatures who had shunned the light crept within the concealment of blackness, lurking in the depths of every shadow, assaulting the weak and helpless for their primal and carnal urges. In all honesty, they sickened him. Perhaps that was why he had found it no far stretch in his capability as a man to take up the work as the butler of the prominent and secretive Hellsing Organization beneath Arthur Hellsing himself.

Up keeping the facade of retainer by day and seeker of the accursed by night, he had grown rather accustomed to his daily routine; perhaps he had even found personal satisfaction in the increasing fluidity with which he dispatched his adversaries. There was a certain kind of pleasure to be drawn from seeing the cocky smirk of a lunging nosferatu turn into the twisted, agonized expression of a dead man as one's body limply crumpled with no greater grace than that of a paper doll in the wind.

One could say that Walter had grown quite indifferent to death in his fourteen years alive.

Tonight, however, he found no comfort in the knowledge of his increasing skills nor the promise of dawn in several hours course; no, tonight, he found no refuge from his own brooding thoughts or the apprehension that tugged at him, laced with irritation and displeasure. The source was quite apparent to him.

Arthur had sat him down and given him a mission he could not, in any semblance of good conscience, decline. The gravity of the assignment itself could be gauged simply by the fact that Arthur had actually sobered up in order to divulge it.

It could be seen as more important than any other that had come before it. It was relevant to the very future of the world, the well-being of entire nations, and it would put him right into the heart of the lion's den. Normally, he would not be unnerved in the least. Solo missions requiring his expertise generally found themselves resolved without too much trouble. There weren't many things in this world that could survive the type of onslaught Walter's monofilament wires could provide.

However... This time, he was not alone. His companion was none other than the Hellsing family's pet vampire, known only as Alucard.

At the thought, Walter simply _groaned._

Alucard was not exactly Walter's partner of choice. He was unruly, often times borderline obnoxious, self-serving and above all, unpredictable. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and leaned his forehead against the cold surface of the windowpane.

"What is the matter, shinigami? Can't sleep?"

The voice from behind him jolted him from his reverie, and he half-turned in his chair so suddenly that it nearly toppled. Steadying himself just barely, he glared at the vampire without bothering to mask his irritation. Alucard. "Don't bloody do that, you wanker," he said, shaking his head. "What did you do, come in through the wall again?"

"Ceiling," Alucard replied off-handedly, leaning his back against the dresser to one side of the room as he crossed his arms over his chest. He leisurely observed Walter with the familiar gleam of crimson in his eyes advertising his perpetual amusement.

"Well then, feel free to leave the way you came," Walter said, waving a hand towards him in dismissal as he turned his attentions once again to the snow falling outside.  
"Come now, shinigami," Alucard said, his voice low as he pushed his weight off the dresser and took a slow step forward, crimson oculars glowing like torches in the darkness of the room. "Why the cold shoulder? Shouldn't we be rekindling our friendship before such an important task?"

Walter's eye twitched twice before he managed to regain his calm, his fingers tapping against his thigh, though he did not turn his gaze from the window. "No," he said shortly. He tried hard to ignore the nosferatu and focus only on the tranquil sight on the other side of the glass. It was very, very hard. However, his attentions had been dulled enough that he didn't notice that the man had crept up directly behind him before an icy finger slid across his throat.

He jumped to his feet with an indignant squawk, sending the chair toppling and into the corner of the room. Alucard grinned like a devious schoolboy as Walter found himself pinned between the crimson-eyed devil, and the cold surface of the glass at his back. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Nothing," Alucard replied casually, his arms flat against the wall on either side of Walter, pinning him firmly to the spot. Their closeness was uncomfortably noticeable; the chill in the air was not from the boy's proximity to the window.

"Get the bloody hell away from me," Walter said, glaring upward into Alucard's delighted countenance, feeling his cheeks growing hot at the sight he beheld in the duel, blood-red orbs staring back at him. There was something... predatory, but beyond that... It was as if...

"Get _OFF_!" Walter shouted, pushing Alucard back by the chest and managing to scramble away and stagger haphazardly into the dresser. He braced himself against it, mumbling a curse under his breath as he stubbed his toe, and grabbed his foot, hopping awkwardly. Oh, this was simply going wonderfully.

Alucard's taunting laughter was like salt being rubbed in Walter's wounded ego. "Very graceful, little Angel," he said, and had his mouth open to offer another sarcastic quip when he was cut short by the sight of a broad grin on Walter's own.

"You really are a bastard," the boy said, the gloves he had retrieved from atop the dresser already slid firmly over his fingers, the nearly ethereal trail of wires gleaming momentarily through the air; it was a mid-second's warning before they descended upon the No Life King.

Alucard, ill-prepared for the sudden onslaught, gave only a brief noise of surprise - somewhere between an appreciative sound and one of amusement - before the wires tightly entangled themselves around his throat and wrists, more wrapping themselves at his chest and over his coat, biting into his pallid flesh and drawing small lines of dark red blood to the surface. The inhuman eyes gleamed brighter as they widened, fixated upon Walter with just as much excitement as they had previously - perhaps even more, refusing to take the shinigami out of their sights.

"Behave," Walter chided hoarsely, carefully managing the pressure at which he held the wires; one slip, and Alucard would lose his head. It was not as if that would be particularly lethal to the man - he had lost his head on more than one occasion, if Walter had understood Arthur correctly - but Walter simply didn't want to be bothered scrubbing all that blood off the floor the night before his infiltration into Warsaw. There was little possibility of sleep as it was, but spending his evening on hands and knees with soap and a sponge did not particularly interest him.

Alucard gave a low laugh, quiet and dangerous. "My, aren't we disagreeable tonight."

"I get like that when you start acting like a bloody idiot," Walter retorted haughtily. Alucard was really testing his last nerve.

"If you wish to play hard to get," Alucard said, voice thick with humor and anticipation as he began moving his limbs against the force of the wires, cutting further into his flesh and sending droplets of red pattering to the floor, "I am more than willing to play the hunter."

"Alucard... What the hell do you think you're..." He was sickened as the vampire let out a sound of pleasure as his severed hand hit the floor, amassing in a pool of blood.

"Shinigami," Alucard said, stepping further still with a smile bereft of sanity broadening his lips as widely as seemed possible. His eyes were ablaze, utterly chaotic and crazed as he licked his lips, blood trickling down his throat and over coat and tie in a steady, unending trickle of crimson as the wires pierced deeper. Walter did not realize he had been backing away until he felt the sudden hardness of the wall behind him; his eyes felt as though if they were to open any wider, they'd roll right out of his head.

His wires went abruptly lax as Alucard's head was severed from his neck; it rolled forward to land at his feet with a sickening _thunk_, blood trickling out from the clean cut in a thin pool. The inhuman, burning oculars were still fixed upon Walter's face with the unnerving and utterly psychotic smile.

He was trembling, he realized; quickly he jerked the wires back to him and took a deep, shuddering breath. What was this nonsense? He could not break his gaze away from the hypnotic glow of Alucard's eyes at his feet, even as the severed head seemed to melt away into a puddle of blood. All Walter's self-control was trickling away into nothing as he stared at his own reflection in the crimson fluid, wide-eyed and horrified, unable to turn away from the macabre scene.

_Get ahold of yourself,_ he barked at himself harshly. _This is what he wants you to do; he's trying to get inside your head. Don't let him!_ Yet, it seemed Alucard's tactics were working. The thin line of respect Walter warrented the nosferatu for his work beneath Arthur and alongside himself was quickly slipping away into the realm of fear and doubt. The nature of the vampire was one of blood and death, tainted by sexual desire and perpetual life that was never quite immortality. Had time finally sent Alucard over the edge...?

When he snapped back to attention, he realized the bloody mess at his feet had begun pooling across the floor towards the wall behind him, crawling upwards and around in strange, unnatural movements. He jerked his hands away, hastily taking a step forth, only to plant his feet firmly within the pool of crimson fluid licking across the floorboards and permeating all of his surroundings. "Alucard!!" He hissed through clenched teeth. "Alucard!! What the bloody hell are you doing?"

"_I thought we would have some fun, Angel, before our trip to Warsaw_," came the detached, omnipotent voice from all around him. He clenched his fists in an attempt to hide his shaking fingers.

"This is hardly what I'd call fun," Walter retorted, eyes darting across the room for some sort of weapon, or escape; he knew it was futile, yet the desperation rising inside of him demanded he do something. Whatever had provoked Alucard into this utterly sadistic and unstable mood, Walter did not like it - the pit of apprehension in his stomach was growing stronger. What would Arthur do when he discovered just what his precious lapdog had been involving himself in? This put the entire mission in jeopordy - and more than just that...

The taunting, endlessly amused laughter came from everywhere and nowhere around him. "_I am enjoying myself immensely,_" came his reply.

A phantom hand brushed across his throat, like a cold whisper of a mid-winter breeze, finding his temple and gently scraping down to his collarbone, where it vanished. Seconds later, another appeared at his spine, traveling downward and sending goosebumps rising to his flesh; a half-dozen phantom hands searched his flesh beneath his finely pressed shirt and vest, and no amount of protest on his behalf could free him from their ethereal clutches. They drove him backward, writhing, where his feet slipped in the blood that had amassed beneath him; he fell backward with a sharp cry, bracing himself for the collision with the wall that was inevitable.

Yet, it did not come. A pair of very real, very physical arms had caught him. Instinctively, he pushed himself away, lurching forward awkwardly and falling to hands and knees upon the floorboards, quickly scrambling towards the bed. He pushed his back against the hard wood of the bedpost, hastily getting to his feet as he attempted to regulate his breathing.

The very moment he lifted his head, Alucard was there before him, the crimson glow of his eyes a blur as he pushed Walter backwards with such strength that the boy simply collapsed upon the bed. In a second's time - a mere eye blink - Alucard was straddling him, one hand easily catching Walter's own he had thrust up in an attempt to defend himself, the nosferatu gripping the smaller fist wholly within his own to prevent the use of any monofilament wires. The Shinigami's free digits were pressed against Alucard's chest in an effort to displace his weight from atop him to no avail.

"Alucard?! Aluca--"

"Don't look so surprised, Walter," Alucard said through a smile nearly as sadistic and crazed as the primal light aglow within his blood-red eyes. He bent low, tongue snaking out between his lips to slide across Walter's throat, pushing one of the boy's legs ajar by the knee and letting out a husky exhale against the his prey's flesh. He felt the goosebumps rise with the motion, and laughed quietly, satisfaction bubbling up to course through his dead veins. "Haven't you ever wondered what you could be, what power the night could offer you? What it would be to walk in shadow as a veritable angel of death?"

"You're disgusting," Walter managed breathlessly, struggling with the weight of the vampire, his actions still vehement and fueled with the rage burning in his eyes. "Get the fuck off," he demanded, accentuating the request by spitting into Alucard's face.

The elongated tongue of the nosferatu merely slid across his cheek, collecting the saliva with a carnal chuckle. "I'm afraid I can't do that," he murmured against the exposed flesh of the boy's throat as he wrenched off his tie with deft fingers and tossed it aside carelessly. Walter's incessant efforts to gain any sort of edge against the vampire would in vain, and both knew it; Alucard's immensely amused and nearly rabid laughter, low and bass, only made the sickening feeling of helplessness all the more powerful inside him.

"You're mad," he cried; a twinge of ice-cold fear, so strong that had he not already been breathless, he was sure he'd have been winded again, striking his heart. Alucard never behaved so boldly before... What in God's name...?

Walter's hands slipped from Alucard's chest, just long enough for him to pull back and begin a strike that never reached it's target. The man simply clutched his fist within one gloved hand, a low rumble of satisfied chuckling exhaled between his pale lips, eyes burning vibrantly in the darkness.

"You certainly are persistent," Alucard said, pulling bother of Walter's hands together at the wrists and easily wriggling his bloodied gloves free, discarding them over his shoulder. Victory gleamed like brilliant wildfire in the vampire's eyes as he stared down at his wriggling prey, effectively disarmed and utterly at his mercy. "You are not as vicious with your wings clipped, Shinigami," he taunted, breathy voice just above a whisper as he pulled Walter's clasped wrists above his head in one hand, the other tilting his chin up forcibly. The boy protested, fighting against his every movement, but Alucard easily dominated him. He may have been a force to be reckoned with, armed with monofilament wires and properly prepared, but like this, he was no more than an average teenage boy.

"Why?" Walter choked as the wet, smooth texture of Alucard's tongue raked once more over the pale flesh of his throat. Tears of shame and frustration beyond explanation stung his cerulean orbs, wide as they stared outside the window, snow whirling in the fury of winds that seemingly picked up out of nowhere.

The sound of licking and sucking was sickening as Alucard's free hand slid from Walter's chin, down his throat and over his adam's apple, past his collarbone and over his chest, his tongue soon to follow, made Walter want to scream. Yet, to do so was as if to give the perverse monster exactly what he wished for, in some way, and Walter would simply not allow it. He could not condone such a total and inconceivable blow to his ego. He had to find a way to pry himself free from this wretched beast himself.

It was then that he distinctly felt the... _change_. The shadows that had lurked in every corner with the presence of the vampire seemed to shift, to grow in size, their darkness deepening until it was as if they were consuming the entirety of the bedchamber. The meager light of the moon hanging behind storm clouds was slowly but surely overtaken by unnatural shadows. The sound of the howling wind, the sight of the white flurries descending in a fury beyond frosted windowpanes, was fading.

"You let your pride outweigh your better judgement," came the taunting and arrogant voice of the nosferatu, deep and commanding, yet quiet and smooth; the haunting glow of Alucard's eyes was hypnotic; Walter could not pry his gaze away. His vehement struggle slowly ebbed to no more than weak jerks, like trembles left in fatigued muscles that had been drained of their energy. "Your sense of pride has lead you down this path, Angel. This is where your fate has taken you. Your angel wings will be clipped, and your precious ego... Your most treasured pride... will leave you bereft and naked, forsaken by God and man."

Walter's mouth worked silently with words that refused to leave his tongue. He was utterly frozen, helpless but to watch as the gleaming fangs protruding from the monster's jaws descended upon his throat.

A brief, choked sound escaped Walter as violent pain assaulted him, the firm and carnally driven grip of Alucard's white-gloved hands around him feeling like iron as they guided his body up to the vampire's welcoming mouth. Teeth rent through his flesh as if it were no more than wet paper; the heat of blood trickled down the slope of his neck and to the curve of his shoulder in a warm, slow flow; the nosferatu hungrily fed from the boy's veins as though he had been half-starved for years, licking up stray droplets with reverent care, gentle yet carnal in a most disturbing way.

Walter's back arched of it's own volition, his head lolling back with eyes as wide as they could possibly go within their sockets. Was this really happening...? What had he done? What had happened to the control the vampire normally exhibited? Was all the taunting he had dismissed as no more than harmless banter truly a sign to the reality of the man's capabilities...?

"A-aagh..." He managed, his eyes beginning to haze over as shock and disbelief began to turn into the foggy fatigue of blood loss. "Alu... Alucard, s..."

"Shhhh," came the soothing reply, a blood-stained finger coming to rest on the boy's lips as Alucard lifted his head from his task, lips dripping crimson down his chin, pattering on Walter's bared chest in thick droplets. "You've forgotten the most important lesson," he said quietly, his deep, nearly lulling voice pouring between blood-red lips. "Even the tamed beast has fangs."

The Shinigami's eyes remained locked upon the hazy face of the nosferatu as he bent low and pressed his mouth to Walter's own; he did not so much as struggle even as the blood-stained tongue snaked into his own, sending the coppery taste of his own life essance blooming in his mouth. This was a nightmare, Walter was sure of it - soon, dawn would crack over the horizon, and he would jump awake at the windowsill, where he'd mistakenly fallen asleep...

As the last of his consciousness slipped away from him, the last thought on Walter's mind was the sight of the sun, forever eclipsed by shadow, a perpetual dawn on the verge of breaking over the horizon, forever trapped in the darkness of an eternal night.


End file.
